How the actuarial profession and media betrayed Albertans
In 2022, I sent details of the CPP’s surplus and potential to all provincial premiers and their finance ministers. Only Premier Danielle Smith of Alberta has taken concrete action. She was not agreeing with the idea that concealing the CPP’s $500 billion surplus would be best, in the long run, for Canadians and Canada.
Bev McLachlan is Canada’s longest-serving Chief Justice in Canadian history. She is from Alberta but now lives in Ottawa. Because my ex-wife is a friend, I was able to personally notify her that Alberta deserves roughly $120 billion from our CPP fund. She learned that $60 billion is surplus intended to make the province thrive. She was asked to visit this website for more information. She may have been influential in shaming the enablers of the injustice described below into considering action.
How much of the $781 billion fund did Alberta deserve? All members of the CPP have a personal fund within the total fund. It is based on how much we have contributed, when we contributed it, and our age. Each personal fund value adds to the total fund value. A computer could easily add the personal fund value of all Albertans and arrive at a total for all Albertans. The fair share of a pension fund that each province deserves roughly co-relates with that province’s population.
Excluding Quebec with their QPP, Alberta’s population is 15% of Canada’s population, giving Albertans roughly a $120 billion share of the fund, of which roughly $60 billion is surplus. When Alberta receives it, Premier Smith’s Alberta Pension Plan website states she will:
Fully match all future CPP pension obligations,
Give Alberta seniors as much as $10,000 each,
Reduce contributions by $1,425 per worker (and matching employer) annually,
Invest some of the remaining funds in Alberta’s economy.
Even though Albertans’ contributions might no longer be invested with the likely 10% return of CPP Investments, Premier Smith persisted. She knows that giving Albertans the benefits from a $60 billion surplus today is better than that surplus remaining unused in Ottawa so that Canada’s financial industry, centred in Ontario, can continue to corner 47% of all corporate profits.
Premier Smith’s actions meant the cover-up of the CPP’s $500 billion surplus was unraveling. If Albertans received these benefits, Canadians in other provinces would wonder why they were not receiving the same benefits. They would likely investigate and learn about the CPP’s $500 billion surplus, CPP Investments likely ongoing 10% return, the benefits of voluntary contributions to CPP Investments, and the likelihood of a $100,000 CPP pension in 2026 dollars for young Canadians.
Based on overwhelming pressure from voters, politicians would have no choice but to legislate CPP reform, thereby giving these benefits to 99% of Canadians. Then the financial industry would lose billions in profit and the actuarial profession would see their future employment prospects possibly halve, as explained here.
Desperate measures by the perpetrators of the cover-up were necessary. In 2023, Premier Smith commissioned LifeWorks, Canada’s largest actuarial firm, to estimate Alberta’s fair share of our CPP fund. Using an unreasonable interpretation of the Canada Pension Plan Act, Lifeworks reported that Alberta deserves a ridiculous 53% of the fund. Using the same interpretation, all of Canada, except Quebec, would deserve 353% of the fund. Suspiciously, Canada’s best mathematicians did not realize what grade three students know - if you divide something into shares, all shares must add to 100%.
The reputation of actuarial science, and Lifeworks in particular, were tarnished. Or were they? The perpetrators of this cover-up told the mainstream media, which they control, to attribute this 53% estimate to Premier Smith, portraying her as unhinged, uncooperative and un-Canadian, as shown below.
As shown in the top left corner, this image was taken from CARP’s website. CARP is Canada’s most powerful advocate for seniors. Even though, based on standard pension practice, Canadian seniors deserve $60 billion from the CPP’s surplus, CARP has been suspiciously silent. Their behaviour indicates they have abandoned their admirable mandate and joined this cover-up, as shown here.
Despite this actuarial and media deception, Albertans know that, if Alberta receives its fair share of our CPP fund, they will each receive as much as $10,000 each. With 43% of Canadians struggling, within $200 of insolvency, a $10,000 payment would provide massive assistance. Conversely, Prime Minister Carney’s Memorandum of Understanding and the prospect of a pipeline to the Pacific would have little impact on the day-to-day lives of almost all Albertans.
Because Canada’s Chief Actuary, Finance Minister and Prime Minister will not even acknowledge the CPP’s $500 billion surplus, a growing proportion of Albertans are considering separation from Canada, one of the best countries in the world to live in. Town Hall Meetings confirm this. A referendum may soon decide this.
Trevor Tombe of the University of Calgary is probably Canada’s most quoted Professor of Economics. He wrote in the Globe and Mail that the idea of an Alberta Pension Plan instead of the CPP was so stupid that you could “drive a truck through the holes” in it.
After the article, I emailed him the above details and copied several of his fellow professors, notifying him that his article was depriving Albertans and Alberta of huge benefits. I told him he belonged on The Reverse Order of Canada List - a list I am compiling of those who have done the most to deprive struggling Canadians of hundreds of billions of deserved dollars.
After receiving my email, he made an about-face. At Alberta’s Town Hall Meetings, he sat beside Premier Smith, educating Albertans about the benefits of an Alberta Pension Plan.
Prime Minister Carney is the lead in this cover-up. Hopefully, he does not want to be known as the Prime Minister who let Canada split in two so that Canada’s wealthiest 1% can become wealthier at the expense of Canada’s 99%. If he now declared a Canada-wide $10,000 CPP surplus payment, he could likely eliminate any impetus towards separation by Albertans.
An Alberta referendum on separation from Canada, and other issues, will take place in October 2026.